NANTERRE (France) - Galatasaray won their series 2-0, Unicaja won their series 2-0, and La Laguna Tenerife won their series 2-0. AEK Betsson BC traveled to France, aiming to complete the full picture.
Instead, Nanterre 92 ruined the Greek team's plan, coming back from down 11 points to win 82-70 in front of the green-and-white fans and force Game 3.
Back to Athens now: It's 1-1 with a spot in the Basketball Champions League Final Four at stake, and hosting the Final Four, too.
Turning point
Heading to the end of the first quarter, Mindaugas Kuzminskas beat Nanterre's perimeter wall to drive to the basket alone, already pushing AEK to an 11-point lead.
At that moment, Philippe Da Silva knew his team really had the backs against the wall in the Palais des Sports Maurice Thorez.
And they reacted with pride, entering a 17-2 run (from 25-31 to 42-33) to come back and gain the advantage.
Since then, the French team have never lost the upper hand, going all the way at the final buzzer with the victory wrapped around their hands.
Game hero
Returning from the NBA in 2020, William Howard has spent some time, changing four teams in four years, before finding the right place where get back to his previous level, shining in Europe.
Moving back to France to join Nanterre last summer, it looks like he has finally found himself once again.
When Philippe Da Silva's team needed him the most, the experienced 31-year-old forward stepped up, recording his season-high in the BCL with 22 points and 9 rebounds.
Benjamin Sene (18 points and 6 assists), Desi Rodriguez (12 points), and Paul Lacombe (9 points, 8 rebounds, and 5 assists) were crucial too.
Stats don't lie
Statistics are always about huge numbers, but there's a simple one to explain this game: 1. That's the number of lead changes throughout Game 2, played on French soil.
Until midway through the second quarter, AEK was fully in control, as said previously. But Nanterre's run changed everything, and they always remained ahead.
Another interesting note?
Dragan Sakota's team used a significant scoring contribution from the bench, as half of their points (35) were scored by non-starters. Nanterre only had 14 points from bench players.
Bottom line
Unlike the other three best-of-three series in this season's Basketball Champions League Quarter-Finals, Nanterre and AEK will clash once again for Game 3 to decide the two teams' fate.
Not only: whoever comes out on top of such a matchup will organize and host the Final Four at home, either in Paris or Athens. You should tune in for next week's only game in the competition to figure it out.
It will be a matter of having fun with their rocking black-and-gold crowd for AEK, or slowing down the pace once again for Nanterre. Unicaja awaits their opponents in the Semi-Finals.
They said
"First of all I gotta tip my hat off to them, they played a really good game. Great defense, great offense, they played a really good game. They just played a really outstanding game, especially in the second quarter, they kinda took off from there. We only came to play 10 minutes of basketball, it's a 40 minute game and we just gotta be better all around and we will be. But we just gotta play better defense individually. Firstly myself, as a leader of this team, I have to be better on both sides of the ball and offensively we just gotta know what we're doing. It's been a long season, we've been together a while, we should know what we are doing out there but we'll be alright." - Hunter Hale, AEK Betsson BC
"I think we played the game we were supposed to play today. Even though we had a slow start, I think we had three good quarters after that and we gotta keep that in mind for next week because it's gonna be a really tough game at their place." - William Howard, Nanterre 92